Nudes depicted on coins are quite rare, and to have one engraved by controversial expressionist artist from the 1920’s Weimar Republic Friederich Hermann Werner Graul (1905-1984) is even rarer! Werner Graul (as the public knew him) was a pioneer in the German Expressionist movement and was chosen as the artist for all of the black and white woodcuts in Fritz Lang’s dystopian book “Metropolis”. He also did posters of the beautiful Brigitte Helm who was the star in the Metropolis movie that came out in 1927. Reproductions of his posters are all over the web and are still hot sellers today. In the late 1950’s, Werner was asked to design some coins that were to be precursors to the Euro. His most famous gold coin was in 1962 remembering John Kennedy. This beauty, titled “Imperium Mundi” (absolute power) features a full frontal nude which we’ve never seen before in the coin world. It’s stuck in 23.5k gold (.980), weighs 17.5 grams, listed as 5 Ducats - 1960 and is 32mm in size. We will never know how many were struck, but insiders in Germany say very few, because Graul was not very wealthy. Regardless, this is truly a great piece of history produced by a legendary artist!